When it comes to selecting an email autoresponder you aren't short of choices. There are innumerable companies online that offer autoresponder services. Various options and pricing structures are available.
Some services are free and earn revenue from small advertisements placed in your autoresponder reply messages. The size and number of these ads varies between different providers, so if free is your target it's still worth shopping around.
Other services charge a monthly, quarterly or even yearly fee and there are also many autoresponder scripts you can install on your own website.
What You Need in Your Email Autoresponder
Whether or not you decide on the free or paid route largely depends on your needs and budget. But having said that, don't be put off soley because a service is free, as some autoresponders you pay for are not as good as the best of the free ones.
There are however a few things that you should look for whatever way you decide to go. One of the first is the amount of freedom you're given in the choice of your autoresponder's "From" email address and name. Ideally you want to be able to name your autoresponder something related to your products or business, unique enough that you can also use it for tracking your advertising effectiveness in various locations or with different ads.
You also need the kind of email autoresponder that allows you to personalize your response as much as possible. At a minimum you want to be able to use the prospect's first name in the body of the letter - in the Dear Xxxx, for example and also in the Subject field of the message, as this helps you in getting your message opened and read when it might otherwise have been deleted or marked as spam.
Another important consideration is whether or not you can opt to receive notification when someone has requested information from your autoresponder. Generally this takes the form of a copy of the prospects original email request including any of their comments. In some situations this can be important in order to keep up to date and to deal with any special requests.
Check to see if there are any limits imposed on the size (length) of your autoresponder text and how often you can change it. Some companies will charge extra to send large files or for frequent modifications. You may need both. Also look at how many email addresses you can add to your autoresponder and confirm if you can send broadcast emails to your entire list of subcribers, and if there are any limits on how often. Email broadcasts refers to the sending of one-off messages to everyone who has signed up to your autoresponder at any time &ndash just the thing to announce your latest, greatest offer.
Note also that you need a follow-up autoresponder. Unlike a regular email autoresponder, these give you the ability to set up multiple automatic follow-up letters at predetermined intervals. This can really help to increase your sales as most people need to see an advertisement 5-9 times before finally acting on it. Over and above that, it allows you to set up long sequences of messages in advance, such as ecourses or promotional mailings, or even a weekly ezine.
Two full-featered email autoresponders I personally recommend are GetResponse, which has a great free service (ad supported) or a paid option if you want to get rid of the additional advertising in your mail outs (preferable); and AWeber, which on top of everything else can also automatically email your list with the content of RSS feeds straight from your website or blog!
